It is important to regularly update your blog and website to keep current customers engaged. It’s also an excellent way to attract potential new customers. But just churning out any old blog content will have the opposite effect. You never …

It is important to regularly update your blog and website to keep current customers engaged. It’s also an excellent way to attract potential new customers. But just churning out any old blog content will have the opposite effect. You never want to turn potential customers away from your site and redirect them to sites that offer better content.

This post discusses the seven important writing tips (along with some great tools) to keep your blog content relevant and engaging. Using these tips will help you to consistently bring traffic to your site.

Tip #1: Determine the Goals for Your Blog Content

When you add new content, it’s easy to think that’s the end of it. However, this is only the beginning.

How is your content going to be seen by your customers?

What are your goals?

What is your content action plan?

Before your put pen to paper, take a couple minutes to think about your goals and strategies:

1 – Write a Strategy Plan

This doesn’t have to be “War and Peace”; it just needs to outline what you will do with your content. Something as simple as tweet four times and post to Facebook can be enough to ensure consistent marketing.

2 – Set Business Orientated Goals

Ask yourself why you are producing your content.

Do you want conversions?

New followers?

Backlinks?

Whatever you are aiming to do, make sure you know what it is so you can concentrate your efforts on the end goal.

3 – Decide How You Will Measure Your Success

It doesn’t matter how good your plan is if you don’t measure its success. Determine which metrics you will track, and see how well your content is working for you. Google Analytics is a good way of tracking customer behavior on your site.

4 – Understand your Audience

Your content will only work if it appeals to your traffic. For example, a cake decorating business wouldn’t expect to gain much by writing an article about fly fishing – no matter how great the article is, it doesn’t appeal to their core readership.

5 – Constantly Modify your Strategy

Using the information you gather in your brainstorming sessions and the metric tracking, you will see what works and what doesn’t. Concentrate on doing more of what works.

6 – Keep an Eye on Your ROI

You need to monitor your ROI – make sure the amount of money you are putting into producing good content is achieving the level of profit you would expect.

7 – Conference Regularly with your Marketing Team

Ensure the strategy is working by discussing your content’s performance, and social media engagement. Brainstorm any new ideas.

Tip #2: Produce Original Content

Copying other people’s content won’t win you any readers. Why not go a step further with your blog content?

Find The Hook:Instead of writing the same article as everyone else, granted in your own words, why not write the article that no one else has? Your readers will love your unique perspective. Ask yourself what is missing from the other articles you’ve read. Now research that area and write about that. That’s your hook.

Market it to The Right People:Look on forums and acrosssocial media at the types of people who are reading about your chosen subject. Promote your posts to those people – they already have an interest in the topic, and you are providing a new perspective on it.

Tip #3: Edit and Proofread

It doesn’t matter how good your content is – if it’s littered with mistakes, readers will look elsewhere for well-written content. Consider employing an editor or proofreader. The downside is that this obviously costs money, but the positives can bring amazing results.

Tip #5: Use Outside Sources

Using outside sources can help keep your content fresh and relevant and can be used in many ways:

Provide Accurate Information: Unless you are writing an opinion piece, use outside sources to check that what you are saying is true.

Use Data and Examples: If you are saying something that is quantifiable, refer to the data and example points from the original source to show you are not just making it up as you go along!

Use Quotes from Experts:Using experts’ quotes can really add validity to your posts and help to show readers that you are credible.

Tip #6: Focus on Your Words

Try to focus on one key idea per article. Otherwise, it can come across as messy. Once you have chosen your key idea, expand on it and talk about various facets of it.

Try to reduce jargon. People don’t want to look up definitions just to read your posts.

Write in your own voice. Posts and articles with a bit of personality read much better than something that sounds like a robot put it together. Don’t be afraid to give a little bit of yourself to readers.

Tip #7: Work On Your Visuals

A long body of text can be off-putting to readers, so always mix up the content in a way that looksvisually appealing.

Use infographics, tables, and graphs, and photographs to break up your text.

Format your text using headings and subheadings, and try to keep paragraphs short.

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By following these simple steps, you are giving your blog content the very best chance of building up a regular readership. Your readership will be more likely to consist of engaged followers who will share your content with others. And as you become a respected authority in your field, people will be much more likely to purchase your products or services.

The subtle nuances of when to post, why to post and where to post on social media, can be overwhelming. This uncertainty is especially true for small businesses. To make posting across multiple networks simple, Facebook offers an easy way …

The subtle nuances of when to post, why to post and where to post on social media, can be overwhelming. This uncertainty is especially true for small businesses. To make posting across multiple networks simple, Facebook offers an easy way to link Facebook to Twitter. And, so does Twitter as discussed in our post on How to Link Twitter to Facebook with Smart Automation.

However, the one-stop shop approach of posting content from one social media platform to another, in one (or two) simple keystrokes (e.g., link Facebook to Twitter and Twitter to Facebook), may be acceptable for some, but it all depends on your intent and audience.

As a user, I find it annoying when people constantly cross-post. There’s a reason why we’re friends on Facebook and a reason why I follow people on Twitter – but the reasons are quite different. If I want to see what you tweet, I’ll follow you on Twitter, but I don’t necessarily want to be your friend on Facebook. – Found on Quora in response to the question: What are the pros and cons of having Twitter crosspost to Facebook?

Option #1: Link Facebook to Twitter via the Facebook Interface

Pro’s: Automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter

Automation saves you time.

The time-saving nature of automation is true. But, how many times a day, week or month do you post on Facebook vs. Twitter?

For example, every social media platform offers different ways to connect, and the way you share information and connect with people through Facebook is very different to the way you would connect through Twitter.

Twitter is fast-paced, you can Tweet ten times a day and not be seen to be bombarding your followers, however, if you posted at this frequency through Facebook, this could be overkill.

Con’s: Automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter

Publishing a Facebook post to your Twitter (or vice versa) may seem like a good idea, “killing two birds with one stone”, but none of your Facebook friends or Twitter followers will be thankful that you did… in fact, it may cause quite the opposite reaction. – Stir Up Media

Your followers follow you on TWITTER because they want to read your TWEETS and your Facebook followers are “liking” your page because they want to see your posts… they don’t want to be sent away to an entirely different social media platform to read what you have to say; it annoys the heck out of the majority of them.

Your Facebook posts can be much longer but will be cut off after 114 characters (or so) to include a link to the complete post.

While hashtags are well established on Twitter, they are not very common on Facebook and make no sense to most people. Using hashtags through Twitter may also not quite make sense through Facebook, or when tagging a business or name through Facebook – it won’t translate and connect through Twitter on an auto-post – they simply don’t quite marry when you connect them in this way.

How to Auto Link Facebook to Twitter (from Facebook)

Step 1: Go to facebook.com/twitter and click on the ‘Link to Twitter‘ button. You can connect your personal profile (at the top) and/or any of your Facebook pages, all from this page.

Note: You must be logged in to the Twitter account you are trying to link.

Step 2: From here, it will take you to a prompt to authorize Facebook to use your account. If you are not logged in, you will need to enter your Twitter username and password first.

Step 3: Once you click on ‘Authorize app‘ it will redirect you back to Facebook where you see the following screen and can select what type of content you’d like to share by clicking on the boxes.

Here you can decide how much information you want to share on Twitter then click ‘Save Changes‘ and you’re all set!

Now you’ll be able to simply post a status update on Facebook that will keep you from having to log into both services and post two separate updates.

HUM…are you sure this is what you want to do?

***Note: since Twitter has a 140 character limit, it will automatically truncate your post with an automatically created short URL that will link back to the original post on Facebook.

HUM…

I’m not going to sugar coat this…the easier solution is to connect Facebook to Twitter directly through the Facebook interface.

However, with a few extra steps using Zapier + dlvr.it (option #2 below), you have much more control over what to send, how often and when.

Option #2: Link Facebook to Twitter via dlvr.it with smart automation

Pros:

1 – dlvr.it uses smart social media automation

This solution is very different from the automation used by Facebook in option #1 above.

With dlvr.it, you have as much automation as you need.

Need complete automation? We’ve got it!

Prefer to touch every post that goes out? We’ve got that too.

Need something in between. We’ve got exactly the right amount of automation for your needs.

To put it another way, that’s what smart Social Media automation is all about.

2 – dlvr.it allows you to share just the right amount of automation for your social media needs.

Hands-free auto-posting

Handcrafted curated posts on an optimized schedule

Fine tune sharing based on keywords, author, tags and more

Cons:

The major drawback is the amount of time needed (initially)

It takes a few extra minutes to work on setting up dlvr.it and then using Zapier to string together an RSS feed. But, once completed, you’re ready to go – use as much or as little automation as you need.

How to Link Facebook to Twitter – the smart automation solution

Step 1: You’ll need to create an RSS feed using a tool called Zapier. Don’t fret; this may take an extra few minutes, but you’ll have to do this just once.

Choose a Facebook Page

In Step 1 (the Trigger step) of the Zap, type ‘Facebook Pages’ in the ‘Choose a Trigger App’ search bar.

Select ‘New Page Stream Post’ and then click ‘Save + Continue’.

Select ‘Connect a New Account’ and enter your Facebook email address and password in the pop-up box. Then click ‘Save + Continue’.

From the drop-down box, choose a Facebook page. Click ‘Continue’.

Make sure you have one recent page stream posted to the Facebook page you selected. Then click ‘Fetch + Continue’.

Once you see the ‘Test Successful’ message, click ‘Continue’.

Configure the RSS Feed

In Step 2 (the Action step) of the Zap, type ‘RSS by Zapier’ in the ‘Choose an Action App’ search bar.

Select ‘Create Item in Feed’ and then click ‘Save + Continue’.

Now you can fill in the fields to customize the Zap. Play around with the settings to format your RSS feed.

Click the drop-down arrows on the right side of each field to show the fields that are available to add in each section. You can copy the settings we selected below. Click to see how the RSS feed formatted with these settings.

Name your RSS feed and click ‘Copy to clipboard’.

Add a Title. We chose the ‘Message’ field.

The Source URL is where the feed item should link. Choose ‘First Action Link’.

Next, add the body content of the feed item. With the limited options available, we opted to show the ‘Message’ field which means the title and the body content will be the same in the feed.

Add the new Facebook RSS feed URL to dlvr.it. Route the updates to link Facebook to Twitter, LinkedIn, Tumblr and more. When you click on the links inside the content, readers are redirected back to Facebook to consume the entire update. Here you will also be able to customize the RSS feed a bit further by automatically adding hashtags, prefixes, and optimized schedules.

What Next? How to maximize your Facebook RSS feed

dlvr.it’s smart social media automation is all about how little or how much you want to automate to link Facebook to Twitter and your other social networks.

1 – If you don’t want to send everything from Facebook to your other social accounts, use Filters.

In Conclusion

1 – If you don’t post a lot of content on Facebook, automatically connecting Facebook to Twitter directly through Facebook’s app might not make a difference to your Twitter followers. My suggestion is to use option #1 above – it makes perfect sense for your needs.

2 – However, to take full advantage of all that dlvr.it offers through its smart automation features, follow option #2 above to link Facebook to Twitter and vice versa.

]]>6 of the Best Ways to Auto Tweet That Will Avoid Spamming Twitterhttps://blog.dlvrit.com/2016/11/auto-tweet/
Tue, 01 Nov 2016 13:46:34 +0000https://blog.dlvrit.com/?p=17250

There is no doubt, automatically linking blog posts to Twitter is a huge time saver. However, blindly auto-tweeting is a good way to lose followers. Conversely, a smart auto tweet strategy not only saves you time but also avoids spamming …

There is no doubt, automatically linking blog posts to Twitter is a huge time saver. However, blindly auto-tweeting is a good way to lose followers. Conversely, a smart auto tweet strategy not only saves you time but also avoids spamming your Twitter feed.

eMarketer estimates more than 52 Million people in the US use Twitter on a monthly basis. So, it makes sense to automatically Tweet blog posts to reach potential customers. Nevertheless, there is a right way and a wrong way to post your blog to Twitter.

We’ve outlined a smart auto tweet strategy that will not only help you avoid spamming but also increase followers. In general, the basic idea is to understand your audience and then deliver the right content at the right time.

1 – How to Auto Tweet Blog Posts and RSS Feeds

The recipe below will show you how to auto tweet blog posts or any RSS feed to Twitter in just a few steps. Of course, you are not limited to just your own blog RSS feed. You can also auto-tweet RSS feeds from any blogger as part of your content curation strategy.

2) Enter your RSS Feed URL from the Automation tab.

3) Once you have this entered, configure your Feed and click on ‘Next: Connect Socials’.

4) Under the Connect Socials screen, click on the ‘Connect New’ button.

5) Click on the Twitter icon and authorize dlvr.it to post to your Twitter account.

That’s it! Now whenever you create a new blog post, dlvr.it will automatically send your blog posts to Twitter.

Here’s what a completed dlvr.it Route looks like:

Now that you can send blog posts to Twitter, we need to add some intelligence. When creating a smart auto tweet strategy, there are a few more steps to take if you want to avoid spamming your followers.

2 – Know thy Audience

To auto-Tweet is not to Spam. Not knowing thy audience coupled with irrelevant Tweets is considered spam.

Twitter Analytics provides detailed performance stats that are not accessible by 3rd party social media analytics tools. Additionally, these stats contain a wealth of information and are available to anyone who has created a Twitter account. However, the key is to understand how to unlock this meaningful data to get the most value.

When you view your Twitter stats, ask yourself a few questions:

How does time of day and day of the week influence the performance of your tweets? Do certain times lead to more impressions?

What is your optimal tweet frequency? Are you burning out your audience by over-tweeting or can you stand to tweet even more than you currently do?

Is your audience more responsive to a fun and conversational tone or more business-like, professional-sounding tweets?

How does media perform in your tweets? Do people love videos and photos, or do they prefer text-based tweets?

How does link placement in your tweets impact engagement?

What kinds of calls-to-action (CTA) generate the most engagement with your audience? Are blatant CTAs more impactful, or does your audience appreciate subtlety?

In other words, this is a gentle way of saying “Hello, pleased to meet you” without being pushy. As a result, if you follow them, and if they like what they see in your Twitter feed, they’ll follow back.

Success on Twitter (and social media marketing in general) is having the right people to follow.

The purpose of Twitter Connect is to help you find people of interest much quicker than before.

The Connect tab also makes it easier to connect with your friends and family by giving you the option to automatically sync your address book.

If you have the Twitter IOS or Android app installed, look for the tab in the upper left of the screen. Click it to expose a wealth of new people to follow.

***You control how good Twitter’s recommendation engine is and the results they display.

For example, let’s say own a pizza joint in San Jose, California. You want to find people who love pizza within your given geographical area. Do a Twitter Search for ‘pizza’ in your zip code (continue reading to learn how). Scroll through the Twitter Search results and like tweets.

In the long run, you’ll start to notice how Connect recommends more people in San Jose who love pizza.

4 – Schedule Tweets to Avoid Clumping

Scheduling Tweets can be a productivity aid when used “smartly”. Moreover, scheduling Tweets offers the flexibility to plan your message in advance and saves hours of time every week.

Generally speaking, the best time to auto Tweet is between 1 pm and 3 pm, Monday through Thursday. With that said, you will have to experiment with your audience. Review Twitter analytics to learn more about the best time to Tweet.

Not only is scheduling an important piece of a smart auto Tweet strategy but it also avoids having too many Tweets going out at the same time. One of the many reasons Twitter followers unfollow is because of ‘clumping’ – that is the rapid firing off of Tweet after Tweet after Tweet.

Auto-scheduling Tweets is how business savvy professionals build time back into their day.

Smart automation scheduling tool

Queue, by dlvr.it, is a smart social media scheduling tool. Not to mention, Queue delivers a consistent flow of perfectly timed content throughout the day to keep your Twitter audience engaged. Queue manages your Twitter feed while you are out to lunch, on vacation or just not available.

Send RSS to Twitter with Queue

Link any RSS feed to Twitter as a backup content source. With an optimized continuous stream of content, you will increase traffic, engagement and brand recognition. No clumping, no spam and not to mentioned delivered at just the right time.

5 – Find the Right Hashtags and Automatically Add to Tweets

Many studies have shown that tweets with hashtags generate up to double (if not more) user engagement.

Increase viewership: Similar to keywords used for search optimization, hashtags help people discover your content in social. You can instantly become more visible and become part of a trending conversation.

Build Social Followers: Hashtags help build social followers. If you are an authority on barbecuing, hashtags will help people find you within a room of desperate conversations.

Create new customers: Find new prospects and customers. Monitor important hashtags in social and jump on relevant opportunities. For example, you could find a prospect in need of your service or discover a prospect unhappy with a competitor. Hashtags discover conversations that are happening ‘right now’ vs. keywords that will last a long time. It is important to set-up an alert within your favorite social media monitoring tool monitoring the conversations (hashtags) you want to follow.

Branding: Hashtags can help brand your business. You can set-up a branded hashtag specific to your business. For example, if you are running a sale, you could create the hashtag #Bobs_barbeque_blowout. If you add the hashtag to your customer communications (email, twitter), your customers can follow the hashtag to stay current on your latest promotions.

Revenue: Hashtags help you quickly determine what people are talking about so this will help guide new content decisions and create new product ideas to boost sales.

Competition: Track your competition. See what conversations they are a part of or what people are saying about them.

With this in mind, finding the right hashtag is the first step. The last thing you want to do is spam Twitter feeds with irrelevant content because you used the wrong hashtag. Leverage popular hashtags – search for hashtags on Hashtagify

Now that you have relevant hashtags, use them to categorize your content on your blog. In WordPress for example when you create a new blog post you can also add a category.

With that said, by using dlvr.it, we can automatically turn that category tag in the RSS feed into a hashtag on Twitter!

To enable this feature on your Twitter account, you will need to access the Socials Tab.

1) Click on the Twitter account and click on the Edit icon

2) Click on the Advanced tab

3) Click on Auto Hashtag placement and choose where you would like to post your Auto Hashtags (Hashtags Before and After content are limited to 5 hashtags)

Before Content: This will be placed between any prefixes that you have set and the content itself

After Content: Placed between your content and any suffixes defined

Inline: If any category tags are matched within the text, this will automatically be changed into a hashtag

4) Select the maximum number of hashtags that you would like us to generate

5) Choose how you would like blank spaces handled (either eliminate or use underscores)

6) Save, and you’re done!

6 – Add Filters to Target Content

For one thing, followers will call anything irrelevant in their Twitter feed as spam. Again the goal with your auto Tweet strategy is to share the RIGHT content with your audience to avoid the perception of spam.

This tactic is where filters make the most sense. Before the auto tweet is sent, dlvr.it can share or exclude specific content based on keywords you enter.

You can filter by the following:

Title

Content

Category

Author

Link

You can filter these categories in a number of different ways. The first selection that you must make is to filter by either ‘Match Whole Words’ or ‘Match Sequence Anywhere’. We have described these cases in more detail below:

Match whole words: Applies filters on words/phrases only if they appear as a whole word. For instance, if filtering on the word “state”, a) “state” will trigger the filter, while b) “statement” will not.

Match sequence anywhere: Applies filters on words/phrases if they appear anywhere in a sequence. For instance, if filtering on the word “state”, all of the following will trigger the filter: “state”, “statement”, “understated”, etc.

Once you have opted for one of these two cases, you will be asked for your filter terms. You can choose to filter by the following:

Must contain all the terms

Must contain any of the terms

Ignore items that contain any of the terms

Save your filters, and now your auto tweet strategy just got that much smarter!

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Do you auto Tweet? What are the best practices you follow? We would love to hear from you.

One of the questions I frequently get asked from my social media friends is “How do I link Twitter to Facebook?” A quick Google search on the search term “posting Tweets to Facebook”, revealed top results from the usual suspects …

One of the questions I frequently get asked from my social media friends is “How do I link Twitter to Facebook?” A quick Google search on the search term “posting Tweets to Facebook”, revealed top results from the usual suspects – wikiHow, Quora, Facebook, and Twitter.

Linking your Twitter account to your Facebook account, so that Tweets are automatically posted on your Facebook page, will help you reach out to more people, and it will make it more convenient for you to communicate overall.

By just glancing at the search results, you’ll see that there are some easy options you can choose from to connect your Twitter and Facebook accounts so that your Tweets and Retweets will automatically post to your Facebook wall and vice versa.

However, there are a couple of things you should think about first before going the easy route:

1 – Twitter and Facebook are two distinct networks with two different sets of etiquette and norms.

This distinction is especially relevant because…

2 – Do you “really” want to post all your Tweets to Facebook?

Posting all of your tweets to your Facebook wall may sound like a good idea at first (you can keep your friends updated on everything going on in your life!), but believe me, neither your Facebook nor your Twitter friends will thank you.

***If you choose to ignore the question above and opt to go the super easy route, option #1 below is probably good enough for you. However, if you decide to invest another ten minutes, we highly recommend that you review option #2 as well.

Option #1: Link Twitter to Facebook via Twitter

Twitter makes it super easy to connect the Twitter account you want to associate with your Facebook profile account. Follow instructions here Using Twitter with Facebook.

From your Twitter account, go to:

Settings > Apps > Facebook Connect > Allow

If you want to know how to link your Twitter account to your Facebook account, just follow these easy steps, and you’ll be ready to go in less than a minute. After setting this up, all of your tweets are automatically and simultaneously posted to your Facebook profile, with a little note at the bottom mentioning that it came from Twitter.

However, do you “really” want all your Tweets to end up on Facebook? And, at the same time?

Why dlvr.it?

With dlvr.it you can choose which Twitter messages to post to Facebook, rather than being at the whim of an auto-updater.

Smart Sharing: Share the right content with the right audience. Target content to your social networks based on keywords, author, tags and more. Also, fine tune your posts with dlvr.it’s powerful find and replace/remove text tool.

Optimized Schedules: Tell us what days and times you want us to check for new updates, and we’ll deliver your content right on time. Or just queue up content, and share it when your audience is active and engaged.

Engagement Stats: Use dlvr.it’s content sharing and social analytics to gain customer insight. Measure audience engagement across social networks and track the performance of each item you share.

But, we have yet to address the fundamental issue as to why having a nonprofit social media strategy is necessary and how best to go about implementing one.

If nonprofits on a budget are looking to effectively invest their time and money into harnessing social media, they probably should look into the facts and figures of each platform first. – The Guardian

In this post, because of its potential impact on philanthropic giving, we’ll look at some of the surprising facts and predictions on global social media growth.

Another key point, in 2016 and 2017, total giving is expected to rise above historical 10-year and 25-year average rates of growth. (Total giving in both years will be slightly below the 40-year average growth rate of 4.4%.)

Specific factors that will significantly influence total giving in 2016 and 2017 include:

Above-average growth in the S&P 500 in preceding years and projected years

According to Pew Research, Millennials now comprise the largest generation in the workforce (more than one in three workers in the U.S. is a Millennial). In fact, they make up the largest percentage of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, surpassing Gen Xers and Boomers.

4 – Donors 40-59 years old (a cross between GEN Xers and Boomers) are now the most likely to give online.

Surprisingly, donors 40-59 years old are now the most likely to give online, countering the conventional wisdom that younger donors are more likely to give online, according to the latest survey commissioned by Dunham+Company and conducted by Campbell Rinker.

In fact, one of the main reasons why social networks are becoming so popular among nonprofit organizations is because one can have a significant impact on large amounts of people with a relatively small or no budget.

That’s because social media – by its nature – has already organized people into micro-communities. These communities appear in various forms, such as:

Facebook Groups

Twitter lists

LinkedIn discussion forums

As a result of all of these social networks (clustered by very specific topics), tend to attract the right type of donor – those who are truly passionate or interested in the subject at hand.

7 – Quality content that’s quickly consumable is far preferable to long-form content that can cause the reader to lose interest and even become agitated and annoyed.

The image below shows the type of content donors like, from the most preferable to the least preferable, according to Abila’s 2016 study.

Other nonprofit social media statistics that support the need for nonprofit use of social media

1 – According to UNC School of Government, in the last five years, one in five adults in the U.S. – adding up to 49.1 million people – has donated to a nonprofit online.

2 – Email and websites, according to a 2015 Social Media Benchmark study, remain the most used audience engagement tools among non-profit organizations.

3 – Social media, according to the same report, however, is catching up as Facebook and Twitter followers grew 42 percent and 37 percent respectively for nonprofits last year. That is significant considering that email lists only rose by 11 percent during the same period.

4 – To find out which social networks were the most popular, HubSpot conducted a survey with small-to-medium nonprofit organizations in the U.S., and especially relevant to our pressing question, here is what they found:

1- Facebook (98%)

2- Twitter (~70%)

3- LinkedIn (~55%)

4- YouTube (~45%)

5- Pinterest (~25%)

6- Instagram (~15%)

7- Google+ (~15%)

8- Flickr (~10%)

9- Tumblr (~5%)

10- SlideShare (<5%)

For most nonprofits, email subscribers still far outnumber social media followers — but that doesn’t mean that you can afford to ignore these channels. Benchmarks X gives an extensive rundown on how nonprofits are using social media — and how supporters are responding.

Clearly, research shows that nonprofits who use social media for more than just “marketing” are reaping significant benefits.

According to Sociallogical.com, social media for nonprofits is the prime tool for:

Educating and engaging people who could and should care about your cause.

Keeping and growing your donor database.

Establishing your organization as the focal point – especially for those who care about your cause.

Shedding light on misinformation and empowering your community to speak out for you.

Most importantly and contrary to widespread opinion, social media will save time by leveraging the conversations and thought leadership that is happening in private and extending it to the wider world where enlightenment is needed.

What is holding back your nonprofit social media strategy?

Considering the predictions and facts above, do you still think having a nonprofit social media strategy is a time-waster? What are the significant constraints?

Here are some of the reasons we’ve heard from our users:

Lack of resources

Time consuming

Limited understanding of the value of social media by the (mature) board

→This is an easy problem to solve. Just share the global nonprofit and social media stats (see above) with your board because the facts alone make a compelling case!

However, it’s important to keep these three things in mind when creating your nonprofit social media strategy.

Developing a nonprofit social media strategy

Step #1: First, ask yourself, what do you hope to achieve with social media?

Podcasts: Record news and information about your organization, framed by relevant current events data, to educate audiences.

LinkedIn: Be introduced to and collaborate with other professionals. As a result, LinkedIn becomes a great way for development directors to stay connected to their corporate donor contacts and prospects.

As of October 31, 2016, the much beloved and pioneer of Twitter auto-posting, Twitterfeed.com is ceasing operations. We wish Mario, the founder of Twitterfeed, all the best. They posted the following on their website:

As of October 31, 2016, the much beloved and pioneer of Twitter auto-posting, Twitterfeed.com is ceasing operations. We wish Mario, the founder of Twitterfeed, all the best. They posted the following on their website:

Twitterfeed will be shutting its doors on Oct. 31st. Please transition your account to another service before that date

As a result, you likely got here because you need a Twitterfeed alternative.

Best FREE Twitterfeed Alternative

If you’re in the market for a Twitterfeed alternative, you’ve come to the right place.

We not only help you auto-Tweet RSS feeds but we can also link your content to Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest and more. In addition, our smart auto-scheduling tool ensures delivery of your content at just the right time. With this in mind, we encourage you to explore what dlvr.it has to offer.

Given that we’re always adding new features, check back often!

Not to mention, setting up a dlvr.it account is quick and easy.

Furthermore, you can get started for FREE, and as you grow, it’s a breeze to add our set of robust features with our paid plan.

Why dlvr.it?

As a Twitterfeed user, you had a certain level of automation.

At dlvr.it, you have as much automation as you need. (FYI, our competitors can’t say that.)

Need complete automation? We’ve got it!

Prefer to touch every post that goes out? We’ve got that too.

Need something in between. We’ve got exactly the right amount of automation for your needs.

To put it another way, that’s what smart Social Media Automation is all about.

We share over 5 Million items for 1,000,000+ customers every day. That is to say; we got this social media and RSS auto-posting stuff down!

In the light of the many questions we have been receiving from customers looking for a Twitterfeed alternative, we put together a list of the most popular questions:

✓Incredibly Fast Updates

✓Google Analytics

Set your own UTM tracking parameters on every link you share. Easily view all social media traffic from right inside of Google Analytics.

✓Smart Sharing

Share the right content with the right audience. Target content to your social networks based on keywords, author, tags and more. Also, fine tune your posts with dlvr.it’s powerful find and replace/remove text tool.

✓Optimized Schedules

Tell us what days and times you want us to check for new updates, and we’ll deliver your content right on time. Or just queue up content, and share it when your audience is active and engaged.

✓Engagement Stats

Use dlvr.it’s content sharing and social analytics to gain customer insight. Measure audience engagement across social networks and track the performance of each item you share.

I had to check my calendar to make sure I wasn’t in some time warp. Or better yet, a “Back to the Future” type Hollywood movie. It’s 2016, and I’m writing about Google Plus.

When was the last time you gave G+ any thought?

I’m here to tell you; it might be worth a second look.

Isn’t Google Plus Dead?

Let’s address the elephant in the room. Is Google Plus dead or just slowly dying? Believe it or not, neither is true. Surprisingly, G+ has a renewed focus. Google is putting resources into making G+ competitive – but with a new value proposition (more on that later).

Matter of fact, take a look at the 2016 Google Plus user stats collected by Statistic Brain:

Total number of Google+ active members

375,000,000

Total number of unique Google+ monthly visits

27,000,000

Average time spent on Google+ per visit

3:46

Percent of online adults that visit Google+ at least once a month

22 %

Percent of smartphone users that use the Google+ app at least once a month

30 %

Average sales order for a visitor referred from Google+

$40

Before we discuss the renewed focus of Google+, it’s important to understand a small change Google made that led to our conclusion.

Auto-post to Google Plus Personal Profiles [and Business Pages]

When dlvr.it launched the ability to auto-post to Google Plus business pages, the first question many of you asked was “What about Google Plus Personal Profiles?” Unfortunately, at that time, Google had not created a way for us to do that.

If there was one thing that frustrated us was the lack of posting to Google Plus personal profiles using dlvr.it. After repeated requests to Google to add this feature went unanswered, we gave up asking and put our focus on other social networks.

We couldn’t figure out why they held back on adding this when Facebook had not.

Now, four years later, our ask has been answered. We’ve partnered with Google Plus to bring you the ability to post to Personal Profiles. But the reason why may surprise you (keep reading).

So, what does this mean for you?

Think about G+ as another place for you and your content to be discovered by the 27M people who share common interests.

Convenience! No more bouncing in and out of dlvr.it to manually update your G+ personal profile. You can finally get insanely organized and productive all inside of the dlvr.it app.

Last but not least, remember G+ is Google. Google search is the largest search engine on the planet, and the two services (G+ and Google Search) are tightly coupled.

It’s pretty easy to add G+ plus your social media calendar.

1.) Login into dlvr.it, click the Socials icon and “Add Social”

2.) Click the G+ icon

3.) Choose your Google account

4.) Choose your Google Plus Personal Profile

Why Should You Care About The Return of Google Plus?

After four years of not posting to personal profiles, why has Google had a change of heart?

We asked ourselves that very question.

The answer is simple; Google+ has a renewed focus on content. It’s not about who you know (like Facebook), but rather, it’s about what you know (content – images, video, blog posts).

With this in mind, it now makes sense why they would open up auto-posting to Personal Profiles.

Google only wants your content!

What’s more, Google+’s renewed focus is directly aligned with Google’s mission to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible.

They’re not in the business of organizing the people of the world in a Facebook kind of way. They tried that and failed.

They’re taking Google Plus into a new direction. The more content that easily pours into Google+, the more benefit you get and Google gets.

Google Plus Renewed Focus

For many years, Google Plus had been a Google version of Facebook. Although Google was slow to realize that they couldn’t compete with Facebook, they are finally breathing new life into Google Plus.

You can now tailor your Google Plus social media stream around topics rather than people.

With Facebook, for example, I connect with people. The thing about people is we have many interests. The reality is I don’t share all the same interests of my friends but yet for the most part, in my Facebook feed, I get ALL my friends streams of consciousness.

On the other hand, Google+ is taking a different approach. Google came to realize that I may only like content related to basketball – so, let me connect with people who share my interest and passion for basketball.

If the same person shares information on G+ that includes their other hobbies, interests or what they had for dinner, I don’t see it. No more unwanted cat gifs, images of what they are eating, and other meaningless status updates.

We can finally say; G+ has a unique value proposition which is to connect people around their interests and hobbies and make it accessible.

The Google Plus SEO Debate Ranges On

What’s important to realize and often overlooked is Google Plus is Google! One could surmise, Google can use your search history to influence the content you see on Google+ and vice versa.

However, what is likely on the mind of many small businesses – is there “really” a connection between Google Plus and SEO?

SEO experts have been debating the value of Google+ and its impact on search rankings. There is evidence to suggest that Google Plus posts do pass SEO benefits (the same is not true with Facebook and Twitter for example).

However, as with all things regarding Google search, no one “really” knows for certain. In our research, we found only one hint of G+’s SEO impact.

According to excerpts posted by the Wall Street Journal from Eric Schmidt’s book, ‘‘The New Digital Age’, Schmidt explains the importance of content posted to Google Plus.

It should come as no surprise that Google would tie the two together. Search is Google’s big moneymaker. If Google wants people to engage on Google+, connecting it with search is one sure way to do it.

The critical extract reads:

“Within search results, information tied to verified online profiles will be ranked higher than content without such verification, which will result in most users naturally clicking on the top (verified) results. The true cost of remaining anonymous, then, might be irrelevant.”

If there are any hints at any SEO value, it’s worth the time to post to Google Plus. Why? Because it’s super simple to do with dlvr.it’s integration of both Personal Profiles and Business Pages. You no longer have an excuse not to share your blog content on Google+.

The Time to Give Google+ a Second Look is Now

To recap, Google+ has many differentiating features that make it unique in the social media market.

Brands are people too: Unlike Facebook, Google Plus Pages will have the ability to interact and engage with any Google+ user – a major plus.

Increase Engagement: Google Plus circles are a natural way to target specific content to users. Now, you can see the right content by the right customer (taking your privacy settings into consideration). As a result, you should expect higher engagement.

What’s next?

Head on over to dlvr.it and connect your G+ plus personal profile (and business page if you haven’t already done so).

Pundits are saying G+ is back! No time like the present to give it a second look.

However you look at a calendar, Halloween is just around the corner – waiting to excite or spook you! Halloween is one of those bizarre days that isn’t a national holiday, but certainly feels like it to employees (and school-aged …

However you look at a calendar, Halloween is just around the corner – waiting to excite or spook you! Halloween is one of those bizarre days that isn’t a national holiday, but certainly feels like it to employees (and school-aged kids) across America. And over the years, anticipation for the office Halloween party, costume contest, cubicle trick-or-treating and office pranks is on high alert.

So while you will have to accept that a little less work will get done on Halloween, there are also plenty of ways to improve morale, focus your employees, and not completely write off the day.

Queen of Office Parties

My daughter-in-law, Christina, a supervisor for a large medical center, is the queen of planning company “morale boosting” parties. Her ideas run the gamut from office Olympics to an NFL opening day tailgate party (which according to her VP, was the talk of the floor) to monthly themed potlucks. Halloween is one her favorites.

Christmas may be the big corporate-paid party of the year, but Halloween is the party that each employee gets to participate in. Celebrating Halloween at work appeals to the child in each of us and helps create a motivational, team work-oriented work culture.

Mug shot of Christina with a co-worker at her office Halloween party

Halloween Activities for Your Office that Keep Employees Motivated

Thanks to Christina, the Balance, and Branding Beat, here are nine office Halloween ideas will that spark your creative thinking and open up the world of possibilities for celebrating Halloween at work.

1. Have a costume contest and parade

Encourage people to wear their costume to work for the day. Or, you can make the celebration more elaborate and hold an official parade of costumed employees throughout the company.

Have multiple categories of awards:

Best costume

Funniest costume

Most sophisticated costume

Costume that took the most work to make

Scariest costume

Most creative costume

Advertise the awards in advance and provide a thoughtful gift to the winners such as a Starbucks gift card or a gift certificate to a local restaurant or an afternoon off. (I vote for the afternoon off!)

We have a costume contest each year at work and there are always lots of creative costumes. It makes for a fun day and my mime costume won this year, yeah!

For offices with many departments (e.g., sales, marketing, accounting, tech, etc.), assign a theme to each department or by floor or division. Add an award to the list above for the best theme. Winning group gets a pizza party or an adventure to the local museum.

Halloween at In-Shape HQ is crazy. Each dept has a theme. We are the Villains! I am @disneymaleficent #marketingteam @inshapeclubs.

→Make sure you read the section below on office-appropriate Halloween costumes! And, the one after that on what not to wear – just don’t!

2 – Host an Office Halloween Breakfast

Cider and doughnuts make a yummy breakfast treat for Halloween. So might pumpkin and apple bread, pumpkin pie, pumpkin coffee cake, or pumpkin and apple muffins. For healthy eating, assorted fruits top off the meal, and do make the breakfast a team building celebration.

→Make sure to ask employees to spend some time together rather than retreating with their breakfast to their office or cubicle.

A couple of ideas for your menu:

Spooky Eyeball Recipe

Cook egg in a little butter, don’t flip

When done, add ketchup for the veins and a slice of black olive for the pupil

Mummy Sausage Dogs

Use sausage links and a tube of biscuits

Place a biscuit on a flat surface and roll out with the palm of your hand, cut thin strips with a knife

Wrap strips around the sausage

Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes or according to directions on box

Add ketchup for eyes

3 – Halloween Luncheon

You can make a Halloween at the office luncheon as seasonal as breakfast. Or, you can order pizza, sandwich wraps, sub sandwiches, or any other lunch menu.

You can even host a Halloween potluck contest, similar to the costume contest. Give awards for the scariest looking dish, best use of blood (i.e., the color red), craziest use of guacamole and best decor.

4 – Halloween Office and Cubicle Decorations

Take some caution tape and webbing and drape it across cubicles, desks, ceilings, and walls. Randomly scatter hand prints (dipped in blood) and plastic spiders throughout for a more realistic effect.

Don’t hold back your artistic urges. Give the office a unique thematic feel and make this an office competition!

Offer prizes for best and most festively decorated work area. You can give awards like the awards suggested above for costumes.

→Enhance the team building aspects of this competition by encouraging groups of people to work together to decorate their shared work area.

If you succeed in making your cubicle into a character, take it a step further and embellish other office items with the Halloween spirit.

5 – Pumpkin Carving Contests

Start at around 4 p.m. so that staff can bring their children in for the pumpkin carving contest. Parents can bring older children to help and younger kids to watch if you choose to make this a family adventure.

Or, better yet:

→Make pumpkin carving a contest between individual employees or groups of employees. Either option is a fun, creative team building opportunity.

Pick a pumpkin face and start working. Get everybody in the office involved!

6 – Trick or Treating (Without the Tricking)

Not just for children, you can encourage all employees to bring treats to share and employees can go cubicle to cubicle or door to door trick or treating. Provide each employee with a Halloween trick or treat bag for fun.

7 – Schedule Philanthropic Activities for Volunteers

If your coworkers are going to be a little antsy, you might as well pour all that energy into some volunteering. Contact a local charity, soup kitchen, or animal shelter to see if you and some of your employees can volunteer for the day.

8 – Bobbing for Apples and Other Games

Increase your office morale and offer your employees a couple of ways to express their Halloween spirit. Games and activities are a great choice because they are easy to set up and only take about 30-60 minutes to complete.

Bobbing for apples is a tradition many of your employees will decide to skip, but it’s fun for those who are interested. It’s a laughter generator for those who are not. Team building games and activities that are active in nature and without the potential to embarrass, work best for Halloween celebrations at work.

Work-Appropriate Halloween Costumes That Keep It Classy

It’s always fun to rock Halloween costumes at work — you get to spice up your regular day with some fun festivities and bond with co-workers over your cute costume inspiration.

But — and this is a big “but” — don’t make the mistake of taking your outfit too far. So as much as you’d like to all dress up as a “sexy grocery store clerk”, you definitely will want to tone down your costume so that it’s appropriate for work.

It goes without saying, but just in case you need a visual reminder, we recommend not wearing any of these costumes to the office Halloween party.

There are different levels of conservatism in every workplace when it comes to how far you can push the envelope. But in most offices, you don’t want to wear a costume that offends a certain ethic group or goes crazy on the sex-pot-o-meter. – Shanti Atkins, President and CEO of ELT, an ethics and workplace compliance training firm

Inappropriate office Halloween costumes

1 – Pregnant School Girl Costume

Just don’t! While it is rather comical and could get a laugh or two, we don’t recommend wearing something like this to an office party. It could come off as offensive or just un-tasteful.

2 – Sexy Olaf

Just don’t! Apparently, the sexy variation of Olaf, the snowman from Disney’s Frozen is one of the hottest costumes this year. The costume might be a hit at the party, but you’ll likely have to endure lasciviously whistled renditions of “Let It Go” every time you walk the sales floor between now and Thanksgiving.

3 – Plug & Socket Costume

Just don’t! If you are bringing your spouse or significant other to the office Halloween party, we would recommend staying away from this one. It’s funny (kind of), but not worth it. Keep the couple’s costumes PG and avoid the innuendos.

4 – Janitor/Warehouse Worker/Manual Laborer

Just don’t! Every so often, some desk jockey, usually a skinny suit wearing, Audi driving, Red Bull-guzzling junior executive type assumes the whole office will find it hilarious if he dresses up in the manner of some occupation that is clearly several stations beneath him. We don’t, and it’s not.

Last, but certainly not least:

5 – Untitled

Just don’t!

Keep HR Happy! Let the festivities begin!

___

Thank you Christina, the office party queen, for the inspiration for this post and awesome morale-boosting office Halloween ideas.

Snapchat opened its doors only five years ago. Today this social media platform is stronger than ever, and it looks like its future is even brighter. However, if you’re a business owner that’s over 20 years old, there’s still a …

Snapchat opened its doors only five years ago. Today this social media platform is stronger than ever, and it looks like its future is even brighter. However, if you’re a business owner that’s over 20 years old, there’s still a decent chance you don’t know how to use Snapchat.

Snapchat grew in one year as much as Twitter has in four. The growth and dominance of Snapchat prove it is the latest social network that you need to pay attention to.

Editors note: In this post on how to use Snapchat, we welcomed user submissions from our blog readers. Who better to help us understand Snapchat than an avid user and aspiring writer, Mike Jones.

How to Use Snapchat to Boost Engagement

In this post, we’ll discuss seven Snapchat tips guaranteed to give you a boost in your social media engagement.

First, it’s important to understand the real backbone behind Snapchat.

1 – Understanding Snapchat

Without embarrassment or apologies, Snapchat succeeded in bringing a different card to the “big guys’ table”. On the contrary, thanks to this card, the website wins more and more territory among social media users every day.

This card is about Evanescence. The creators behind Snapchat understood that the one element that defines a real-life conversation to be genuine and desirable is in actuality, its perishing character. You can’t find the dialogue saved on any hard disk, but a Snapchat becomes a memory that inspires a feeling inside of us.

The same rule of meaningful conversation stands as a backbone for today’s Snapchat. Visual stories from a Snapchat disappear without a trace after 24 hours from their creation. The success of this innovative feature makes us think that the Internet shouldn’t store our humanity (a wishful thought).

This disappearing act brings some bad news and good news when thinking about how to use Snapchat for your business.

The bad news is that you have only 24 hours to prove a point.

The good news is that every 24 hours you have a clean page to create the recipe that boosts engagement.

2 – Cracking Snapchat Stories

How to use Snapchat in a natural and organic way to boost engagement is to beat Snapchat at its own game, namely by creating compelling stories. The platform runs entirely on snaps, which are videos or photos that open the door to a narrative. Using snaps to promote your brand:

Gives you access to a low-cost marketing channel that creates highly personal connections

Engages users with one another

To make the most of your 24 hours, you should respect a key element that differentiates snaps from other videos or photos. That is – every snap posted – should have a raw personality.

This character means that the story of a snap doesn’t require a large budget or much forethought, but should convey an original message, and be spontaneous. Snapchat doesn’t speak the language of business. But rather, consumers come to Snapchat to show the world their real face and have fun at the same time. So, it is important to forget about marketing strategies while on Snapchat and come up with new ways to make consumers see your brand.

Every story can receive an impactful boost by using Snapchat features. Businesses shouldn’t restrict the use of lenses, face swaps, emojis or special texts in their posts. These features increase the engagement in a fun and natural way. Rumors have it that Snapchat will move its content to the 3D level, so be prepared for new methods to deliver stories – sooner than later!

By cracking Snapchat stories, the result will help forge the key to success. Remember that snaps have 24 hours to become memorable through authenticity and originality by showing pieces of reality that inspire your brand to greatness.

3 – Show your Brand’s Personality

Users make a choice before joining Snapchat. That choice is to ditch the glamorous filters of Instagram and the pressure of posting only “perfect” stories on Facebook for the envy of friends. Instead, they seek new ways to show the world their real personality. This human aspect might mean exposing their “not so cool” traits, such as silliness or awkward situations.

Before creating their first story, businesses have to learn how to use Snapchat in this new way of socializing. Fortunately, companies can choose from several methods to make their brands more personal and to boost engagement.

How to use Snapchat to make your brand more personal

Snapchat exclusive sales. This method is the perfect platform where you can design some private sales. Make sure you post the campaign only here and nowhere else. It is a good way to create the feel of a community, where only Snapchatters can enjoy exclusive perks.

Snapchat promotions. Again, this method has exclusivity at its core, but it is more than that. This time, Snapchat users have to do a little extra work to gain access to your promotion. Giveaways are fun to host, especially when everyone that participated gets a reward. The participation usually sticks to what Snapchatters love most, namely taking pictures or videos that respect a theme related to your brand.

Exclusive previews of new products. Before showing the world your brand new product, entrust your community with your exclusive news. Showing Snapchatters your product before anyone else will create a unique bond with them based on trust. The excitement of a new product is something worth talking about. Sparking up the possibility of a viral event will boost engagement.

Behind the scenes videos. Snapchat gives its users a friendly environment to post daily events. As no one has only perfect days in a row, snaps about ordinary daily activities are most appreciated here.

Your brand is not just a professional product. Brands have regular faces, meetings, daily office routines, office parties, a kitchen with coffee, etc. Show Snapchatters that they are part of your community through behind the scenes videos that surprise them. Such as:

A crazy brainstorming session of the marketing team

A philosophical dialogue between colleagues over coffee

The process of product creation

Users will feel that they can relate to your brand, which humanizes it.

4 – Allow Takeovers

There are many influential Snapchatters whose voices inspire thousands of followers on a daily basis. Even greater news is the possibility that there are important influencers out there that have something to do with your field.

It is a good strategy to discover these famous personalities within the Snapchat community and contact them with the purpose of collaboration. For example, clothing retailer, Wet Seal worked on a Snapchat campaign that was entirely taken over by an influencer with the username MsMeghanMakeup. She had a community of more than 300,000 followers, and her experience with this social platform enabled her to gather 9,000 connections in just two weeks for the fashion retailer.

We wanted to be thoughtful about how we could exponentially increase our reach, so we partnered with an influencer in the teen space. – Leslie Hall, President at Wet Seal’s digital agency ICED Media

This campaign demonstrated one of the most effective engagements boost that Snapchat ever saw.

→Key Takeaway: Allow the help of influencers, especially when your Snapchat profile is at its beginning.

5 – Activate Snap Ads

Snapchat has made it easy for businesses of all kinds to advertising on its platform. The website recently introduced the option of snap ads, which are approximately 10-second promotional videos that appear between stories. These ads seem like normal posts – which give them an organic nature. You can also include a swipe up option, like other snaps, to lead viewers to pages with additional details, such as websites, longer videos, and articles.

Snap Ads can appear even during a live snap. They can target audiences based on gender, age, type of content they engage with or mobile network careers. What’s fascinating is that Snapchat discovered that the click through rate on a Snap Ad is 5x higher than on other social platforms.

6 – The Power of Geofilters

Snapchat doesn’t employ hashtags, but it nonetheless has a similar version of them. The new hashtags are the Snapchat geofilters. These are little decorations that appear on snaps. The use of the geofilters is to let viewers know the location of the Snapchatter by showing the name of the city, neighborhood or other places.

Businesses can now create sponsored geofilters of their own. Whenever users snap a photo, they have the option to use the filter of the location to explain where they are. The little art can cover bars, shops or restaurants, but they can even be active during an event.

This way, if a business doesn’t own a certain location, the marketing team can manage campaigns where Snapchatters have to be in a particular place, use the brand’s geofilter, and have a chance to win an exciting prize. Snapchat claims that a nationally sponsored geofilter from the U.S. can reach 40% to 60% of its daily users. And when you think about the fact that Snapchat has around 150 million daily users, you can just see how much geofilters can boost engagement.

7 – Sponsored Lenses

There’s a third way to invest in Snapchat advertising. A favorite feature of this social platform is the lens. Users can add these interactive animations over a photo or a video, and the result is funny and entertaining. Users can now throw up rainbows, have kitty faces, big eyes, change into zombies or famous characters.

Businesses can join this popular trend with sponsored lenses. Snapchatters tend to love sponsored lenses and use them to personalize their snaps. With just one caveat – as long as you come up with a new and exciting twist on the user experience! Snapchat researched this social feature and found that their users play around 20 seconds on average with a Sponsored Lens. That gives the businesses enough exposure to clearly boost the engagement of their brands.

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Hopefully, with these seven tips, you have enough insight into how to use Snapchat to promote more engagement with your brand. Do you see a Snapchat campaign in your future? All indicators support that Snapchat should be part of your social media mix. So, now is a perfect time to board the Snapchat boat to increase brand awareness.

As of the second quarter 2016, Facebook had over 1.71 billion active users – are you reaching the right ones? My guess, probably not. But if you’re like me, spending money on Facebook Ads is like blindly throwing darts.

As of the second quarter 2016, Facebook had over 1.71 billion active users – are you reaching the right ones? My guess, probably not. But if you’re like me, spending money on Facebook Ads is like blindly throwing darts.

You may have dabbled in spending a couple of bucks to boost your Facebook page posts but were probably disappointed with the little response – leaving you feeling like you wasted your money. Sound familiar? Do you find yourself wishing there was a better way to reach your target audience on Facebook?

Unless you’ve taken one of Mari Smith’s Facebook Ads webinars or are a social media expert, it’s hard to know where to start and how much money you should spend.

In this post, we’ll discuss the who, what, where, why and when of Facebook advertising.

1 – How Facebook Ads work

2 – Who Should Advertise on Facebook?

3 – How to Target Facebook Ads

4 – How create a successful campaign

5 – Importance of images for Facebook Ads

6 – How to track performance

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How Do Facebook Ads Work?

In researching this post, I realized that I didn’t quite know the difference between Facebook Ads and a boosted post and when should I use one or the other? It turns out, the answer to this question isn’t always an easy one. It depends on what your goals are for advertising and what audiences you want to reach.

Thanks to Reload Media for the following explanation:

What is a boosted post?

A boosted post is the most basic advertising you can do on Facebook. You create a boost by allocating advertising budget to a post already on your business page. Taking my husbands business page Evan Garber Arts as an example below, you can see the ‘Boost Post’ option in the bottom right-hand corner.

The post on its own would only reach a tiny portion of Evan’s current audience which could be as little as .05%!

Boosting the post allows you to ensure a much larger audience sees the post in their news feed.

Typically, use boosted posts when the goal is to achieve audience engagement such as post likes, shares, and comments.

What are Facebook Ads?

Facebook ads are a more advanced way to advertise on Facebook and require you to create an ad account.

Facebook ads offer the greatest number of options for advertisers, and the type of ad you choose to use will depend on your marketing objectives. Objectives include Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion and contain the following goals:

You’ve tried ads before and didn’t get good results (read: a solid ROI, return on investment).

You’re not really sure what to advertise.

You don’t understand Facebook’s ad terminology.

You don’t know who to turn to when you get stuck….

Next, consider what type of business do you market to. Are you a business to consumer (B2C) or business to business (B2B) company?

From the Moz blog, take a look at the pros and cons of advertising on Facebook.

Pros of Facebook Ads

Campaigns are easy to track

Immediate influx of traffic

Complete control over your daily budget and maximum CPC

Instant return on investment (You can easily define a cost per conversion and understand what your profit is)

More targeting options, including, towns, regions, age, likes/interests, income bracket, and other demographics

Easier to set up than Google AdWords

The ability to reach people early on in the buying process, before they are aware of their need, while capturing those who are conscious of the need in a subtle way

You can use images and videos to capture the interest of your target market, helping you to sell your products and services

CPC is relatively cheap, depending on your industry (On average, our clients have paid no more than $0.61 per click)

Cons of Facebook Ads

If set up and managed incorrectly, it can be costly

Depending on your target market, the majority of the large potential audience can be irrelevant (For instance, we would not recommend Facebook Advertising if someone only served or supplied their products and services to one town)

There is no option to target your ads at certain times within the day or on certain days of the week unless you choose a lifetime budget (Most of our clients request daily budgets)

Only really suitable for those operating in B2C markets.

Reaching people too early in the buying cycle could potentially reduce your goal conversion rate

Conclusion:

1 – If you are operating in a B2C market, Facebook advertising could be the ideal cost effective solution for you.

2 – On the other hand, the main con of Facebook Advertising is that it’s not recommended for B2B companies.

How to Target Facebook Ads

One of the biggest advantages to advertising on Facebook is your ability to target specific groups of highly engaged people. In fact, according to Facebook, compared to the average online reach of 38% for narrowly targeted campaigns, Facebook targeting is 89% accurate.

Here’s a snapshot from the ‘Ad Set’ section in Facebook Ads where you can define your target audience by the feature sets listed above.

How to Create a Successful Facebook Advertising Campaign

Here are the creative steps to creating ads that feel at home in the Facebook feed, as well as help deliver business results – at least according to Facebook:

1 – Identify your business goal

Start by deciding what your ad is intended to do.

Are you trying to push a certain product?

Drive foot traffic to your store?

Encourage website views?

Improve trust?

Identifying the purpose of your advertising will help you build posts that deliver the desired results.

2 – Identify your audience

Decide who your target audience is before you design your ad. It may affect the image and the way you write copy.

How old are they? 18-25? 25-54?

Where do they live? Anywhere? In Boise, Idaho?

What kinds of things are they interested in? Family Activities? College sports?

3 – Choose a topic

When deciding on the topic of your ad, think about your audience, and what would be interesting to them or offer them some valuable information.

Do you feature employees to build trust?

A new item to bring back old customers?

Knowing what the subject or theme of your ad is will help determine everything else.

4 – Choose an image (see more on images below)

Images are the first thing people will notice about your post. So take time selecting and curating the images you put there – this is how people will see your business.

5 – Write your copy<– (Notice how this is way down at the bottom of the list. Read more on why images are everything in Facebook ads!)

You don’t have to be a novelist to write effective text for a Facebook post. Following a few simple tips can help make your writing more effective and consistent in your ads. Most importantly, if you do nothing else, spellcheck.

Ask yourself the following:

1 – What’s the best reflection of your businesses personality?

Is it funny? All business? Adventurous? Every business has its unique identity and the more authentic you are, the more effective your ads are likely to be. Be yourself and be consistent in your tone of voice.

2 – What is important?

***Remember, people scroll through Facebook quickly, so the chances they’re going to stop and read a novel are slim. Stick to the relevant information and pay attention to the character count limit.

Elements of a successful ad

As a helping hand, here are a few tips again from the Moz blog to get you started on the road to creating a successful Facebook Advertising campaign:

Keep your information short

Make sure to include an offer or price

Use keywords

Include persuasive or engaging imagery/video (see more in the next section on the importance of images in your campaign)

Place your URL above the image/video in the text section

Use taglines and hooks to draw your potential customers in (i.e., “Make This a Year to Remember)

From AdExpresso’s eBook on The Science of Successful Facebook Ads, here’s a quick overview of what a typical Facebook ad should look like:

A couple of data-backed facts on the most popular type of Facebook ad:

1 – Most popular: Page post Link ad

Data shows that the most popular type of ad is the Page Post Link Ad and is ideal for promoting your external site. Use the Link ad to send people directly to relevant sections of your website.

See example of a post link ad below found in my Facebook feed for Tecovas (everyone needs one awesome pair of boots!):

2 – High Engagement: Video ads

Video ads, which currently make up 15.1% of all Facebook ads, can drive high audience engagement.

Best practices of a video ad:

Use the video to show your audience a short example of your work.

Embed the video in an ad that promotes your offer or business.

Include a CTA to sign up to receive more information at the end.

3 – Photo ads are good for generating comments and likes, but not good for traffic, and you can’t include a CTA.

4 – Other ad types of ads such as Events and Offers are good for highly specific aims, such as promoting a time-sensitive webinar or sale.

Images for Facebook Ads

The good and bad news: Images are everything in Facebook ads.

Consumer Acquisition found that images are so important, they’re responsible for some 75 to 90% of an ad’s performance.

1. Pick An Interesting Subject

Try to pick an image that will grab your audience’s attention as they scroll through Facebook.

2. Shoot for Quality

If possible, avoid these three things:

Low resolution (which leads to pixelation)

Blurry photos

Clip or stock art

You can do this by taking photos with your smartphone of things that aren’t moving (that includes your hands while you take the photo), in well-lit places. It also means paying attention to the size of the image specified by the ad you’re building (square vs. rectangle).

3. DIY Photography Tips

You can take great photos on your smartphone.

Take the time to set up your shot.

Make sure there’s proper light and that you don’t have a lot of things crowding your frame.

Try using a photo app that offers filters. They take an average photo and make it feel more professional.

A few more tips from AdEspresso. Do these images grab your attention?

Tip #1: Eye Contact Helps Build Trust

Tip #2: Focus On Lips

Notice the power of red!

Tip #3: Beards Rule

Researchers from Australia looked at how people rated the attractiveness of men who were clean-shaven, had light stubble, heavy stubble, or were in full bloom beard-wise. They found that the men with the heavy stubble are always rated as more attractive than the clean-shaven guys.

Tip #4: Pregnancy Bumps Can Release Our Care Chemicals

Conclusion: We spend our entire lives looking at other people, so we’re drawn to them in ads as well. We love looking at eyes, lips, and bodies — it’s just in our nature. Adding something slightly different, like facial hair or a pregnancy bump can also make your ad stand out from the rest.

For more inspiration, download AdEspresso’s eBook on 500+ Facebook Ads Examples to get inspired. The best advertisers are those that constantly try new ways to improve their performances. New designs, new audiences, new ads’ copy. In this eBook you’ll find 500+ real world Facebook Ads Examples to get inspiration from for your campaigns!

How to Track Performance

Coming soon…

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What have your experiences with Facebook Ads been like? We’d love to hear from you. Please share in the comments.

Every so often, I have a need for a custom infographic for a blog post. Usually, this is followed by a fleeting thought such as “I can make my own – no problem!” As we all know, with limited time and limited design experience, this is a somewhat impossible feat to accomplish. Until now! Word on the street is there is a new web-based infographic maker that helps you make stunning visual presentations in four easy steps.

I’m up for the challenge.

Here’s what I know about Visme – a free online graphics tool for bloggers, businesses, and other professionals with limited to no design skills.

Visme translates your ideas into engaging content in the form of:

Presentations

Infographics

Reports

Web content

Product presentations

Graphs & Charts

Wireframes

So what does Visme have to offer you?

Visme — the Swiss Knife of Visual Content

Have you noticed that many visitors come to your website and leave right away?

According to Visme, it is not your content.

The number one reason people leave your website is because of non-stimulating and outdated images.

One of the key features of Visme is that it allows you to take otherwise boring data and transform it into a simple and easy to understand visual format.

Infographic Maker 101 – How to Create Professional Infographics

Goal: Take the boring stat above and create a beautiful visual presentation.

(Facebook remains the most-used social media brand among all ages with 64%. But among 12-24’s, it has been overtaken by Snapchat (72% to 68%) with Instagram close behind (66%).)

According to Visme, creating infographics is easy. You can start with a blank canvas and introduce your own elements and design, or you can start from a series of starter infographic maker templates to use as a great starting point to create from.

Step 1: Select an infographic maker template

Visme has numerous infographic templates to choose from. Select one that best meets your design needs. It’s easy to customize so don’t worry if the template isn’t a perfect match.

To start my boring stat infographic, I searched through the templates using the keyword “social media”.

Step 2: Create an outline of your topic

The purpose of an infographic is to translate a theme or idea into the form of visual content. Therefore before you populate your infographic, step back and ask yourself a few questions:

What is the purpose of the piece?

Who is going to be my audience?

What message do I want to portray to the viewer?

Pro tip: There is no right or wrong, but make sure you do have a clear picture of what you want to create before you do begin the process.

Here’s my outline:

Purpose: Take a boring stat and turn it into an interesting visual

Audience: Our blog readers

Message: Wow, that’s interesting!

Step 3: Select from the free assets and upload your own

Now that I’ve picked my theme, I can do any one of the following:

1 – Create a chart or graph. Each chart can be customized with specific bits of data to fit your data needs.

2 – Use the infographic widgets.

Infographic widgets are exclusive mini apps that allow users to quickly translate otherwise boring data into simple and easy to understand snackable pieces of content that are easy to digest.

3 – Add footnotes and references

Step 4: Publish your infographic

This final step is super easy. Review in preview mode then hit publish and voilà…

Boring Stat Infographic: Teens are flocking to Snapchat

My thoughts on Visme (so far):

1 – The app is fairly user intuitive but took a little longer to create my first infographic than I would have hoped for – because there is so much you can do, the tools and settings aren’t entirely intuitive, resulting in a steeper learning curve.

2 – I couldn’t find the Snapchat logo in any of the button sets, so I tried uploading one from my desktop. This process was not easy – again, a learning curve but after a few attempts, I was finally able to load the image.

3 – The animations are fun and simple to do. If you reload this page, check out the animations on my “Boring Stat Infographic”.

With that said, I can’t wait to use Visme again.

What else can Visme do?

As mentioned earlier in this post, Visme is much more than just an infographic maker. I haven’t tried these yet, but you can also do the following:

1 – Presentations

If you’re tired of PowerPoint, Visme offers some beautiful presentation templates for you to use, each with its own collection of slide layouts.

Once you complete your presentation, you can present online via Visme or download your slides as images and paste them into Powerpoint.

2 – Banner Ads

If you advertise online, you can use Visme to create attractive and engaging banner ads in many shapes and sizes.

Even if you don’t advertise, banner ads can be utilized on your own site as calls to action, driving your website visitors to take the next step in your sales process.

Here’s a snapshot of five different default banner types and their sizes

3 – Custom

The custom design area of Visme is one of its strengths, enabling you to use their tools to easily create any type of image, including those share-worthy memes that pepper your social media streams.

However, when it comes to an easy-to-use infographic maker and ability to create interactive presentations, Visme is one of the few visual content creation tools that allows you to add interactivity and animation to all your designs and collaborate with other team members on projects.

It does more than just create one type of content and every template is completely customizable.

Ability to make any object interactive and add motion.

Easy publishing. You can download, share directly through social links, or embed in your site.

The embedding option is particularly cool, as it means you can include animations to liven up presentations and reports when they are embedded, adding visual interest to what could otherwise be a boring set of static slides and statistics.

Fully HTML5 based so content is both web and mobile friendly.

Inquiring minds want to know:

Would I personally recommend this service? YES, with a caveat. Once you get used to the program, you’ll be able to do more than you ever expected. However, if you don’t have time, or only need an occasional graphic, Visme may not be for you.

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Visme also has great blog content. For more creative ways to use Visme, here are some good finds from their blog:

There are currently 1.7 billion active Facebook users, so trying to find customers who might like your business is as frustrating as looking for a needle in a field of haystacks. Lucky for you, Facebook People Search is like …

There are currently 1.7 billion active Facebook users, so trying to find customers who might like your business is as frustrating as looking for a needle in a field of haystacks. Lucky for you, Facebook People Search is like having a super-powered metal detector that can search each haystack in milliseconds.

First of all, Facebook People Search contains a wealth of information on what people like, their hobbies, food they eat, pets they love, brands they associate with, images they share, competitors they follow and endless demographic information.

Secondly, all these details can be used to generate better content, create better connections with prospects, craft better ads, and sales pitches.

Facebook Search puts all this data at your fingertips. However, you need to string together the right query parameters to extract detailed information on prospects.

Understanding How Facebook People Search Works

Facebook People Search is a useful tool to find targeted prospects and boost revenue. However, you have to learn how to extract the data first.

Because Facebook People Search responds to both keyword searches (similar to Google) and natural language queries, it makes searching through Facebook something like a game of Mad Libs.

Think of natural language queries as phrasing questions the same way you would ask a human.

Natural language search is search carried out in everyday language, phrasing questions as you would ask them if you were talking to someone. These queries can be typed into a search engine, spoken aloud with voice search, or posed as a question to a digital assistant like Siri or Cortana. – Search Engine Watch.

For example, if you own a “bait and tackle shop” in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, and you’re interested in reaching customers in your local community who like fishing, you might use the following query:

“People who live in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin and like fishing”

When you understand how queries can be structured, it’s easier to determine what type of question will yield your desired result.

Generally speaking, you can use Facebook People Search to find:

What Facebook users think about your competitors’ products and services so you can get a clear picture of how to position your business.

The overlapping interests of your target customer base so you can create more relevant content on your Facebook page.

What Facebook Groups and Pages are most popular among a business’s target customer base, so you know which groups your prospects are hanging out in – ultimately you can join those groups.

What hobbies and interests are shared with prospects so you can create deeper connections and conversations with them.

Find Customers Using Facebook People Search

Facebook People Search can handle a surprising number of parameters so you should take advantage of this to learn more about your target audience.

Using the bait and tackle shop as an example, you can search for people on Facebook who liked a competitor who lives in your city. The search query, could like something like this:

Fans of [page] who visited [city, state]

In the example above, you can see I used two criteria to find the exact person – Facebook Page and City/State.

You can also take a more targeted approach to a people-focused search. For example, let’s say you want to reach women who are married and like fishing. You might search for something like this:

Women who live in [city, state] and are [married] and like [something]

Now that you have the basic structure down, you can start experimenting with different queries that return the results you are after.

But, beware: While you can layer and string together a plethora of search queries, consequently you could be severely limiting the result. These conclusions are where the experimentation comes in.

Whether you sell to consumers or businesses, you can pinpoint people on Facebook that are more likely to buy what you sell.

Search Queries to Uncover the Right Customers

Don’t think that Facebook is just for B2C sellers either. There are more people on Facebook than LinkedIn, and the level of data locked in Facebook People Search is much deeper than you will find through LinkedIn Search. You can find not only where they work but what they love which will help you find commonality with your prospects.

Search Examples

Below are a few examples you might use to find and learn more about prospects. You can search for specific people, Facebook Pages, City, State, favorited pages and more.

1 – People who work at [company] and live in [city, state] and like [page]

2 – [type of business] liked by people who like [something]

3 – [type of business] liked by people who like [page]

4 – [type of business] liked by people who live in [city, state] and like [something]

5 – [type of business] visited by fans of [page]

6 – [type of business] visited by people who work at [company]

7 – [type of business] visited by people who work at [company] and like [something]

8 – Favorite pages of [company name] employees

9 – Favorite pages of [profession]

10 – Pages liked by people who like [something]

11 – Pages liked by people who like [something] and visited [city, state]

A practical example:

Imagine you sell recycling services to businesses – we’ll call it Greener Earth – and business is slow. By using a business-focused query, you might discover that a lot of “NewCo” employees (your target company) care about recycling and also like a local coffee shop.

The search queries might look like this.

People who work at NewCo and live in San Francisco, CA and like recycling

Favorite pages of NewCo employees

Consequently, you may hold an informational meeting at the coffee shop or do a cross-promotion with the store owner. For instance, you could do a trade with the coffee shop owner and offer your services in exchange for a window sticker, flyers or a green recycling bin with your logo on it.

In fact, queries like these, paint a three-dimensional picture of your ideal customer.

While conducting market research for Greener Earth, you might just learn that many fans of your business also like the Facebook page for America Recycles Day.

“Wow!” you might say. “I didn’t even know there was such a thing as America Recycles Day.”

What a very promising promotional opportunity!

How to Search Facebook Posts

Now that you found prospects, and know their interests, the next step is to find not only content they share to further enhance your customer profile but to improve your own content strategy. Moreover, the right post-focused query can help you unearth this treasure trove of information.

First, you might start by studying your competitors and identify what kinds of posts get the biggest reaction from their customers.

What are your competitors sharing? What are your prospects sharing?

To find Facebook Posts loved by your prospects, try these queries:

1 – Posts liked by people who like [page]

2 – Posts liked by people who like [something]

3 – Posts liked by people who live in [city, state] and work at [company]

For example:

For Greener Earth, your search might look like this:

1 – Posts liked by people who like recycling

2 – Posts liked by people who like NewCO

3 – Posts liked by people who like [Competitor’s Page]

Through these queries, you might discover that people who like recycling responded well to a competitor’s post about recycling paper and responded poorly to a post about the cost of recycling.

In fact, if you notice this behavior occurring enough times, you could focus your sales pitch on ways to reduce paper usage and educate prospects on the long-term cost savings.

Putting Facebook People Search in Action

You’ve created a target list of prospects, started to write and share posts they love, but now you want to take your prospecting to the next level and contact them directly.

1 – Expand your personal network

Using Facebook People Search, you can discover people who aren’t your friends and who like a particular Page you like.

For example, find common hobbies and include a note that helps create an immediate connection.

People who are not my friend who like [page]

Movies liked by people who like [page]

Favorite music of people who like [page]

Sports teams of people who like [page]

Or, network within Facebook Groups.

However, this isn’t a license to blast everyone with a self-promotional message. Ultimately you want to come across as being helpful and personal (without being creepy because you have a ton of information on group members.)

Groups of people who like [topic] and like [page]

2 – Request Facebook Friends to like your Page

Find friends who haven’t liked your Page and then invite them to check your Page out.

My friends who like [page]

3 – Learn about your prospects or customers without surveys

In the past, if you wanted to find out more about your customer’s hobbies, interests, favorite TV shows, etc., you had to survey them. As a result, you wasted a ton of time and spent a lot of money. With Facebook search, you can now get a good snapshot – for free and in a few keystrokes – which only takes seconds.

Interests of people who like [page]

Pages liked by people who like [page]

You can then create content or ads that resonate with your target audience.

4 – Compare Fans to identify new markets or products

Use Facebook People Search to find cross-promotional opportunities, new markets to target or strengthen a loyalty program. This query shows what your customers do when they aren’t doing business with you.

[Type of business] in [city, state] visited by people who like [page]

Products liked by fans of [page]

5 – Sort Your Fans’ Page Likes by Gender and Age

Maybe you need to appeal to the interest of specific genders within your Facebook fans for instance to create targeted content or ads.

Page liked by [male/female] in [city, state] visited by people who like [page]

Interests of [male/female] in [city, state] who like [ your page]

Pages liked by people over the age of [number] who like [ your page]

6 – Show up in location-based searches

Are you on the radar of local landmarks or places near you that people visit often?

Use this query to see if your business turns up in the results.

Places near [place] visited by people who like [attraction]

If your business is not appearing in a local search, learn how to boost your search ranking in Facebook Search.

The emoticon features achieved high performance, suggesting that there is a strong link between emoticon use and social power. Powerful users tend to use emoticons often and high Klout is strongly associated with positive emoticons. – Simo Tchokni, The Computer Laboratory University of Cambridge UK

Fact #3: Studies on workplace communication show that when specific, negative feedback from a superior comes with positive emoticons, employees are more likely to feel good about the message and more likely to make the changes asked of them.

Our results suggest that using liking emoticons increases perceived good intention of the feedback provider and decreases perceived feedback negativity when the feedback is specific. – JAIS

Fact #4:Research shows that subject matter experts who use emoticons are perceived as more “friendly and competent” than those who don’t.

In most cases, you can create a more positive customer experience simply by dressing up your communication with punctuation.

Consider the following two support emails. They are identical except for the use of exclamation points and emoticons:

The second email (above) is an excellent example of why overt friendliness works in written customer communications!

Emoticons vs. Emojis

It all started with a simple colon, dash, and bracket used by computer scientist, Scott E. Fahlman back in 1982.

He thought it would help people on a message board at Carnegie Mellon distinguish serious posts from jokes. He proposed the use of and for this purpose, and the symbols caught on.

Since then, thousands of emoticons like the smiley face have emerged, conveying a diverse and complex array of emotions and concepts.

We’ve written a few posts on how to use emojis and emoticons successfully in business communications and social media. Although they have different history and meanings, we are using the two terms interchangeably.

You might not know it’s called the Lenny Face, but you’ve definitely seen it before. This smug little face and its many derivatives — like the “wearing cool shades” emoticon—can often be seen on discussion boards, Reddit, and even Twitter.

The Lenny Face originally comes from Japanese forums and is a part of the Kawaii Emoticons trend. Kawaii is Japanese for cute, and the emoticons have a large variety of Unicode characters to show different feelings. In fact, Eastern emojis are different from Western ones, so you’ll also be able to stand out among your friends.

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Skype Emoticons

Select the emoticon you want to use from the palette in the IM window (by clicking on the smiley in the chat window) or use the keyboard shortcut – a set of characters or a particular word in brackets. If you hover over an emoticon in the palette, you’ll see its keyboard shortcut.

Try some of these shortcuts:

Skype has loads of visible emoticons to choose from but here are some surprising ones:

Hidden Emoticons: You won’t see these secret emoticons on the menu, but if you know the keyboard shortcuts you can surprise your friends with them.

Try out the (gottarun) hidden emoticon – amusing – especially if you “really” do have to run

Country flags: Flags are a great way of letting people know where you are or where you’re going.

Mojis: Mojis are short video clips you can use to express yourself in your instant messages – for those times when words or emojis just aren’t enough.

According to Microsoft, it has scoured the archives and handpicked the funniest, craziest, and most iconic moments from some of the best TV and movies out there.

Mojis categories currently available include Hollywood, BBC, the Muppets, Bollywood, Angry Birds, Spring and Love.

Pokemon Go Emoji Keyboard

Unless you’ve been off-planet for the past couple months, you’ve probably heard about the huge success and popularity of Pokémon Go.

Not surprisingly, two French designers are working on developing a keyboard of emoticons that allow people to communicate using ‘pokémoji’. The flattened icons, rendered in a simple color palette and illustrated without three-dimensional effects, will bring your favorite comic characters to your fingertips.

→The pokémoji keyboard will bring the uber popular pokémon emoticon to your fingertips.

Facebook search is possibly the most powerful, under-used feature on the social network.

Facebook has a wealth of information you can’t get anywhere else – even on Google and they made a few attempts to get search right. However, pundits believe they may have finally cracked the nut with their latest effort.

Facebook Search Isn’t Quite Google – Yet

Facebook’s intent is to be the “go to place” to surface real-time information on current trending news.

Google is still the search king for daily search queries. However, what’s important to mention is there are other social networks – including Facebook – that are quickly gaining ground on Google.

Consider the following search queries per day across several social networks:

Why is Facebook boosting search?

The main reason why Facebook is so focused on expanding search is that it hopes to increase ad revenue.

Although Facebook makes a ton of income on ads already – nearly 6 Billion in Quarter 1 of 2016 alone, they have said they are running out of ad space.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is hinting at a future search monetization strategy, saying:

There’s a reasonable amount of behavior in there (Facebook search) which is looking for things that, over time, could be monetizable or commercial intent.

Obviously, Google has proven there is money to be made with search. The question for Facebook is whether or not they can create a viable monetization strategy around real-time conversation content in their search index.

Facebook Search: Find the People and Posts that Matter to You Most

People on Facebook are attempting to find what their friends are up to.

Twitter search has been the go-to-place for information on live events and breaking news – similar information that Facebook is now surfacing.

Facebook’s renewed focus on search means trouble for Twitter.

Although queries for “dentist” or “burrito” could surface recommendations from friends that compete with Google results, Facebook search wants to become the place for you to find all types of public conversational content.

How does Facebook Mobile play into Facebook Search?

Consider this fact, 54.2 percent of Facebook’s 1.6 Billion active users use Facebook mobile. Facebook has made trillions of posts available on the Facebook mobile app.

So, next time you are interested in where your friends are or looking for a ‘fun restaurant’, you can surface this information at the very moment you are hungry and looking for a place to grab a bite with friends.

And when you’re looking for friends in a particular geography, just search for “friends who live in” and include the name of the country, city or whatever geographic parameter makes sense for you.

Advantages of Facebook Search

1 – Facebook’s index of ‘conversational content’, including reviews, recommendations, likes, and visit data is a huge advantage over Google because the data can be leveraged to deliver more personalized results to the user based on what their friends liked or paid attention to.

2 – And Facebook didn’t just stop at building a keyword based search index. They realized that their audience’s time is shifting to mobile, messengers and chatbots.

What this means for Facebook is a new approach to search that would make sense of the conversational content users were sharing.

3 – To take advantage of the major time and attention shift of its customers, Facebook needed a fresh take on combing through trillions of pieces of unstructured conversations. To this point, Facebook launched what they are calling DeepText artificial intelligence.

The tool analyzes text continuously so that the social network can provide services and content that match up with what people are sharing or might need.

One of the first obvious applications for DeepText will start rolling on Messenger. When DeepText identifies a sentence it thinks means you need a ride, it will suggest you use Messenger transportation integrations with services like Uber and Lyft.

How do Facebook Lead Ads factor into Facebook Search?

Facebook is not only creating a new way to present compelling content to people promptly, but if monetization search is in the future, maybe Facebook Lead Ads give us a peek at how they plan to monetize it.

A Facebook Lead Ad looks like a traditional Facebook Ad, but—when a Facebook user clicks on one—it displays a form that is pre-populated with the user’s phone number, email address, and other information the user has already given to Facebook.

This type of ad unit is perfect for mobile because it doesn’t force users to leave Facebook and travel to some unfriendly mobile landing page the advertiser created.

How to Rank Higher in Facebook Search: Five Optimization Tips

Facebook uses 44 ranking factors in its EdgeRank algorithm to determine what appears in user feeds. According to TechCrunch, there are approximately 200 factors that establish the order of the search results including:

Like history

Previous points of engagement

Previous searches

Geography of searcher

Similar to optimizing your website for search, there are a number of things you can optimize to improve your search presence within Facebook search.

How to optimize for Facebook Search?

1 – Post Timely Information

Past: In the past, to see your update, I had to be following you.

Present: Now (based on your privacy settings), when using Facebook search, I could surface your updates.

Facebook includes public posts into search results, so if you’re looking for information about a current event or trending topic, you’ll likely see results from people outside your network alongside posts from people you know.

Facebook users are willing to read! Also, this gives you more opportunity to include relevant keywords in your updates.

2 – Include Photos and Videos

When you search on Facebook, you can view the results in four different categories: Top, Latest, People, and Photos. What this means, to get noticed, is that a compelling photo increases the likelihood.

3 – Optimize Your Facebook Page

Your Facebook page is probably not going to turn up in the search results, but it is a good practice to keep your page in order because when you do surface in a search query, and that user clicks to your posts, you want to make a great first impression.

Call-to-action: Make it easy for visitors to get to your site or add their email.

4 – Participate in Popular Conversations

“When a link gets shared widely on Facebook, it often anchors an interesting public conversation,” Facebook said. One click will display the most popular public posts connected to a specific link, therefore allowing users to jump into the conversations on those posts.

The more actively you participate in discussions related to your niche the better the opportunity you will surface in the search results.

5 – Use Facebook Instant Articles

Facebook’s goal is “… to connect people (quickly) to the stories, posts, videos or photos that matter most to them.”

What’s more, is that 50% of their users access Facebook mobile so it only makes sense that Instant Articles has the potential to be a ranking factor.

Instant Articles allows any… “publisher to tell great stories, that load quickly, to people all over the world,” according to Facebook.

Facebook wants to keep users on their platform and will likely give preference to businesses who use Instant Articles.

An often overlooked and many times taken for granted technology innovation in social media is the “un-sexy” URL Shortener.

The URL Shortener is part of the social media fabric. Short links are a necessary element to the space constrained social media feed, and when used at full capacity, they are capable of affecting change in how we communicate with customers.

However, when was the last time you gave any thought to these little workhorses?

If you are like most, the last time you paid any attention to your URL shortener was when it didn’t work.

Like any given technology, the only thing constant is change. If you are still using an original flip style phone, maybe you don’t care about innovation. However, if you updated your mobile phone within the last 5-years, you might be interested in learning how the URL shortener market has evolved.

URL Shortener History

A URL shortener service is a tool that generates a short URL that directs to the original web page.

Next to the content you put in a social media update, the short URL is the second most important element in the update but yet how much attention do we give it?

URL shorteners have been around for some years. Their original purpose was to prevent cumbersome URLs from getting fragmented because email clients (i.e., Constant Contact) felt the need to wrap everything to an 80 column screen. As a result, the URL would break and email performance suffered.

Tiny URL was one of the first URL shortener services on the market. Start-ups soon came to realize the wealth of data they could extract from a simple short URL. Not surprising, the number of URL shorteners ballooned and to compete; they put their own unique twist on shortening links.

Today, Bit.ly, Goo.gl, and TinyURL are the most popular services.

Furthermore, once social networks (i.e. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) saw that 3rd party link shorteners were collecting and analyzing data inside their platform, the social networks started shortening links with their own branded URL and consequently reaping the rewards of the insight gained from each click.

Link Shortener’s Effect on SEO

One of the most common questions asked about short URLs is their effect on SEO.

Does using a URL shortener hurt my SEO in any way?

This issue is something you’ll often hear from link shortener haters. But, as Matt Cutts says in this video, the PageRank, and anchor text will flow through the shortened link and that there shouldn’t be any harm in using them…as long as the URL shortener is using a 301 redirect.

Short URL Best Practices

Particularly relevant to boost engagement on social media is the:

placement and

the mere presence of links

Consequently, the often taken for granted link does have a significant effect on performance.

1.) Put Links 25% of the Way Through Tweets

Links placed just before the halfway point (in characters) of tweets tend to have higher clickthrough rates than links placed elsewhere.

2.) Use Links to Get Retweets

While fewer than 25% of all tweets contain a link, more than half of retweets contain a URL.

3.) Share Links to Interesting Content

Accounts in which between 60% – 80% of tweets contain links tend to get more retweets than accounts that tweet fewer links. Source: Hubspot

4.) The more readable by human beings, the better

The easier a URL is to read for people, the better it’s for search engines. Accessibility has always been a part of SEO, but never more so than today, when engines can leverage advanced user and usage data signals to determine what people are engaging with vs. not.

5.) Limit redirection hops to two or fewer

Generally speaking, search engines will follow these longer redirect jumps, but they’ve recommended against the practice in the past, and for less “important” URLs (in their eyes), they may not follow or count the ranking signals of the redirecting URLs as completely. Source: Moz

Did You Know Your URL Shortener Can…

1.) Boost Branding

A custom short URL adds a powerful brand element to your distributed content which, as a result, lends added professionalism and personality to your social media efforts.

Furthermore, having your own custom URL shortener leads to an increase in link trust. No one likes clicking on random links, so knowing it comes from a reliable source goes a long way towards increasing the likelihood that users might engage with it.

bit.ly, a popular URL shortener, found branded short URLs increase CTR on links by 34%.

A custom URL shortener is the domain that replaces the default “dlvr.it” short URL in a shortened link. For instance, “http://dlvr.it/123bcd” becomes “http://your-custom-domain.com/123bcd”.

2.) Uncover Sources of Hidden Traffic

Dark Social refers to traffic not attributed to a source.

According to website analytics provider Chartbeat, nearly 70% of ‘social’ sharing goes untracked while only 25% of sharing “actually” occurs on Facebook and Twitter – combined. The term to describe this is Dark Social.

Dark Social is the blind spot in website analytics. In many cases, you can tell which sites people were on before coming to your site consequently this is helpful in determining where to spend your time and marketing money.

It’s hard to measure because it happens when users copy, paste, and then share a link through email, apps, bookmarks or on chat.

This type of sharing is outside the basic core of the social media ecosystem. As a result, a huge goldmine of valuable traffic and customer data remains untapped and bypasses traditional analytics system.

When sharing content outside your site, mask the link with a link shortener.

The short URL is short enough to paste into an email, chat, and text. When clicked, you will know where the link originated from because your link shortener will capture the data.

3.) Generate Revenue

There are some specialty URL shorteners that do more than shorten links. The first one we’ll discuss helps you generate revenue with every link you share. These types of link shorteners add a layer between a short URL and the destination page.

For example, when readers click the short URL, they are brought to an intermediate page before moving onto the final destination. This intermediate page contains an ad and as a result, you get paid on this brief visit.

How paid URL shorteners work:

Visitor clicks a shortened link

An ad shows on an intermediate page – you earn money.

The visitor is redirected from the intermediate page to the destination page (long URL)

Earn money the smart way by getting paid for every person that views your links.

4.) Generate Leads

Another type of specialty URL shortener focuses on conversion. One such service is Snip.ly. Sniply is a link shortener that drives conversions by embedding a call-to-action into every page you share. This allows you to engage your followers at a deeper level than any other link shortener.

Add a custom call-to-action to any link you share with Sniply

Sniply generates unique short links that you can then share. However, what makes Sniply different, then other shorteners is the ability to include custom content on the page you just shared. As a result, anyone clicking on your links will see the content along with your call-to-action (i.e., email sign-up, visit site, buy).

For example, if you click on snip.ly/demo1, you’ll see a blue box and yellow button in the bottom left corner of the article.

If you curate content, Snip.ly is a must have because it reminds your followers who sent them to a 3rd party article.

5.) Track Social Media Performance, of course, but…

The best part of many URL shortening services is the statistics that they can show however when combining UTM tracking parameters and a short URL, what you get is a more clear picture of the performance of a particular media item.

UTM tracking parameters are tags (additional text) you can append to the links you share which then help you better measure the performance of your social media campaigns. Google Analytics supports five main campaign variables.

Best of all, when you use dlvr.it, you can automatically add this additional layer of insight into every link you share!

6.) Track Offline Marketing Performance

If you place ads in print magazines or newspapers, have a commercial on TV, pass out brochures or pamphlets, exhibit at conferences, have a billboard on the side of the road, or utilize vehicle wraps, include a unique short URL. You can then measure the source of offline traffic that shows up on your website.

The URL should be short unique and memorable.

Dairy Queen took this to an extreme in a postcard campaign. They created a unique domain for each person who received a postcard. The card directed the person to receive information specifically personalized for them. In the example below, Dairy Queen used ‘Jodi’s’ contact information to send her a postcard greeting wishing her a happy birthday.

Dairy Queen print campaign using a unique short URL

Using bitly, a popular URL shortener, as an example, a typical auto-generated bitly short URL looks like this:

bit.ly/aB2Ug

However, another option is to create a custom bitly link where you append the URL with a unique name that is memorable and/or matches the medium in which it will live. In this example – postcard.

bit.ly/postcard

Now for the same campaign, you could create a unique and memorable URL for each print medium your ads run.

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Finally, a few fun things to leave you with…

1 – If you’re curious where a short URL takes you, use this service to expand the URL and know where you’re going